Nixon & Haig on Watergate and Presidential Resignation

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What the shit did he do?

He gave a bad testimony to the committee, which in my thought was a complete job, mostly.

And, uh, Mr. Patrick Strikers is not being featured today.

I don't agree with that.

Adam M. shouldn't come back.

He's behind his resignation now, and, uh, they don't try to get him to come back.

Just take it.

What was it?

That's what I want to understand.

Just another one, let me tell you, they're getting, there's a mic now that we're just, we're just going to take it.

We're not going to get goddamn discouraged about it.

I don't do that.

The more I'm getting into this, I don't know what your attitude is, but my frame of mind is, I just sort of, I mean, it's been developed into, I'm just getting goddamn pissed off at taking this, this, this crap.

I mean, sure, that it's, it's just a good thing done.

Nobody, poor old Brad Cook

Well, it's going to get close, also, to Casey.

And that's... there's no question about it.

There isn't?

I've got to get into that, uh, sort of... Oh, yes.

Okay.

Have you got anybody else who didn't get into it before you?

No, not me.

But I'm going to hide it.

The light is the best thing I can see.

Let's let it go.

Well, I think we'd better be sure.

You'd better be sure.

And that's why I want you to be very confident on this one.

So we don't have a big congressional theory in the model.

What may have been a bad measurement becomes criminality somehow.

All right.

OK. All right.

That's an easy one.

It's easy.

Well, I don't mind that a few people have believed it so far.

This is a decent guy.

And he said, I was coming to that conclusion.

We've got to come to it, come to it quickly.

He made it a little easier for us to talk to John.

You know, how did the economy come to receive him?

Well, I, in fact, in fact, totally know.

I said, well, we can't do anything about the state of the lab.

This will get something.

At that time, I wanted to take a hard look at it.

I said, it's either going to be one of two people.

It's either going to be you and Henry, of course, who would have to stay on for a while in the transition stage, which will be Dexacol and stuff, or it's got to be him.

I said, there ain't anybody else who can do this damn job.

And I said, however, we've got to look at it at that point.

We've got to look at it because I forgot that there was a rear pin thing coming up.

You know what I mean?

But the reason was to keep it.

I had to keep it dangling a little back, of course, in case I needed it.

But he'll find it useful to tangle.

He may reach the conclusion at that time, you know.

You know, he doesn't want to be on any goddamn— if you think the ship will go down, he may want to not come.

Well, but they think it's not going to go down, Al.

It's not going to go down.

The reason he really shouldn't do it, if he's thinking in his own terms, and I'm sure he is, is that our farm policy is going to become the target of partisanship.

The chairman of France will attack everything we do to get come if he's Secretary of State.

And that's my main concern about his new amendment to the Lexington Act.

Well, I raised that with him.

But at a later time, I told him this.

I said, I want to be sure we see Russians here.

They'd be there.

Maybe we'd have a little text where they could have a hunting process, or a kind of protection.

So that's what they thought about it.

So I've done that.

We went through the whole trail out about the staff.

Staff, yeah.

And I don't think just you and I.

talk about this thing you know in his view basically this idea let me again it's one proposition the idea is going through the administration and sweeping out all the people the next people is pushing that's good john john

Ron Walker.

These are our people.

Don't you do it.

No, well, Matt was Stan Kern, Brad Cook.

Just too bad he wasn't one of our people.

Strongly recommended by money last year.

Well, Jerry Jones and those people have other names.

If they could just give me another name that's clean, clean as hell, I'd get the goddamn name up there immediately.

Things like this all should be routine.

All right.

Let me just run through.

You've got to make it around .

You want to rush and get this done?

You want to get this great good one done?

Well, I'd like to.

All right.

Get me out.

If you could come back here, we'll have what we talked before.

I can just say this is a good company.

I kept them there, and I said, well, you'll be able to give us some names.

I talked about the signature name.

And then frankly, if we could find somebody else to be the press secretary, I would very much like to have a cigarette.

And a counselor.

I would be a special assistant.

I mean, he'd be the guy who would have all the ground on scheduling and so forth and so on.

He's a hell of a, he in other words could handle my health if he'd take all that off of you.

Take all that campaign.

I mean, not campaign, but the scheduling crap and so forth.

Appearances.

Where do you go?

What do you do?

It's where somebody really ought to be thinking of that other than simply these boys around here.

And also, what kind of speeches should the president be making?

You know, the whole PR apparatus.

Well, I'm going to tell you now that I think I know the man for a year.

You do?

Scali called me about this a week ago.

He said, Alan, God damn it.

He said, I love her, but it is really not necessary here at this tour that he's Alan from the O'Reilly.

He was your ring cell then?

Yeah.

What do we say?

Well, he's very high, and I'm very high, and of course, we could be off the road, and that's as clear as it is.

And now they do it.

They don't fix it, or really do it, but I think I can get them to do it.

Now, he, you know, he stayed at Bill Rogers for four years, and he's a dedicated trustee.

Well, he wants to be a, he wants to be an ambassador, you know, which I'm glad it may be, but if he would take us to this point, it would be fine.

See, we have some other options that we could look at, but it's simple.

It's a gift that they're coming.

I'm one of the guys who's close to the

Sigler is the best man, of course, you know, and, uh, but, but, Scali thinks that his credibility lies because of, uh, his having reported, he's, he's just told the truth, he's told what a goddamn dean told him.

That's right, dean, dean, just killed him in a couple of minutes.

I don't know.

I'm not sure we're running too fast.

No, that's what I'm saying, sir.

I better check the press for it.

I'd like to take some real temperature here before we do anything crazy.

We went through also a comment.

I'll show it to you.

His ideas are not very good at all.

He hasn't thought through anything very well.

I'm rather surprised there.

He really hasn't thought it through.

He just wants to do something big, sweet and clean.

He says there's a great crisis in the country at the time and all that sort of thing.

I think actually that he's reflecting it.

There is, but somewhat more than it is.

I don't know if they're not concerned.

You know, an elder example.

uh all this about uh i mean this stuff about resignation now you know god damn well that it's unthinkable that i should never resign that country would not want it and it's unthinkable there's no reason for it there's no reason what can we do

The administration had some problems, so they're going to impeach the president.

And anyway, there isn't that, they're in the columns, in the magazines and so forth, but there isn't that much feeling in this press corps on that one, on the impeachment.

Do you see it or not?

I don't, I normally don't see it.

And the Congress, I don't see a hell of a lot of responsible Congressmen jumping up and down about impeachment.

Responsible, you say?

Do you?

No, I don't know that fact.

of course that's the lines of the New York Times people have got against them.

Well, I guess they haven't said that yet.

But let me tell you, not that we don't like it.

And it's just like this Van Dien thing that today, you know.

You know, I was thinking that.

I'm glad we've got this honor here.

You and I have got to

but why the hell he had to do it that way i don't know but thank god he is going to play ball in his family you just feel that safe

Let me ask you a question.

What will Kobe say?

Will he say that he saw Madcon and he will insist on having it?

Why isn't the CIA, you think he's gonna run over there?

I just don't believe so.

It wasn't you.

I don't believe so.

He wasn't there, but then it happened.

I just do not believe that's what we can do.

but i think what we have to do is to keep it right here and say that it was a why did you have a copy inside because it involved a discussion that had nothing to do with and the cia had no operation he has testified for dynamic david to the committee and he's available for all questions that's right but we are not trying to break the we consider we consider an absolute

foreign well poor old grandpa he was there last night at the party i was going to say he has to go give me another good name

First they'll lose confidence in the government and so forth.

What's the matter?

And the president's popularity, you know, sounds like a shit.

That doesn't mean anything.

Popularity would be 20, 15, but you're still president.

And basically, I've got a lot of support in this country that these assholes don't know about.

That's right.

I know, but you didn't.

I know.

I know every place I've ever been.

You know, I've done a lot of tracking in the last city.

It's horrible.

Yeah.

The point is, the point is that we cannot apart from it.

I can be the most unpopular son of a bitch, but I think it was a great mistake for Johnson to resign.

It's crazy.

I do.

But now, but now you see, in my case,

I can't, I haven't, I can't resign.

I can't admit culpability for something I haven't done.

And it's silly, shame, shit, stuff.

Sure, because they had something.

Vesco, I didn't even do Vesco.

We didn't do any of the pastures.

That's where you're going to rely on.

And I think you've got to, I mean, we've got to buck each other up and stand here like a rock.

That's what we're going to do.

And that's the goddamn demand of the country and the need of the national interest.

And that's what you're going to do.

Yes, sir.

I'm not going to shred it out of my mind.

and on the other thing i've got to move very slowly and just see i left because i had a thought basically i'm ron i'm the second jeremy i had a talk with ron before all right i thought it was actually a movie and basically the slip and hold

What I really have in mind, I'd love for you basically to be the children of Jesus and the substance of the man.

The substance, the real substance of the man.

But then you see, you have the problems that have to do with what the hell the president does.

And these are terribly important.

Does he or does he not have a press conference?

Does he or does he not go out and do the armed service?

Does he or does he not see these assholes flutter his public postures and so forth?

In other words, it's that kind of stuff that you should not be bothered with.

You should know about it all.

But my point is, it's that kind of stuff.

In other words,

Well, Ron will basically be the president.

My brother's manager.

That's right.

Now, he's very good at that.

He's got a keen feel for it.

There certainly is a way.

Much more.

By the way, you've got to do everything.

Otherwise, I've got to leave it where it is, which isn't bad.

I don't do much of it myself.

It's just basically PR.

And he still did it.

but i don't know i don't know i'm not i'm not ready to move on that yet i'm not ready to keep on you see the difficulty is i think it sort of gives you i mean scally is also a very emotional kind of thought and he's never been much of a stand-up or i don't know why we point these people to where we do but many of them i think i wouldn't uh

God damn it, sometimes I just think you...

But you do it as well.

You do it as well.

He doesn't, he doesn't do it for you.

He had a tough day yesterday.

I think he was the one that helped.

I know, I know.

But Scali, all you've done is your typical Scali.

I mean, what, when was Scali ever used?

When did he ever get a writing box?

Do you have a record of him?

Go ahead.

No, he's constructive.

He's a good one.

Is he?

Yes, sir.

Good.

I wonder, I have one other question before we go back.

On Richardson, Connelly was the first defendant.

He thought Richardson probably was trying to make tracks so he could get out of this goddamn thing.

He was trying to jump ship.

Do you get that feeling, or does he want to stay?

No, he didn't know.

He's not a leader.

I had a long talk with him last night.

And I said, I ain't gonna ask you.

What do you think about it?

Maybe move it very quickly.

The president will appoint a prosecutor on your recommendation.

I would for a long time.

I said, no, no, no.

He said, we have to do that.

He said, I took on this job.

I really didn't want it.

I've taken it on, I've made it very clear that it has to be in accordance with the basis of these statutes.

So if you do that now, then I'm going to have to tell you what it looks like.

The man who was picked is Mr. Queen.

He's therefore been put aside.

Okay, well then, is this coming now?

Having gone through their routine, does he feel he can get Mr. Queen?

He thinks he's going to make it.

Does he think he can get confirmed?

Yes, he thinks he's going to make it.

One of those four candidates dropped down yesterday.

I know that according to the comments, it's just going to be Warren Christopher, and he didn't know how bad he was.

I don't think, actually, we could probably control it until I'm almost afraid that everybody knows.

So tell me, suppose it's Warren Christopher.

He's a partisan, Kennedy Democrat.

So he'll, what'll he do?

What in Christ can he do?

Sure, he may try to grab the president more.

No, this is a trial.

This is a different thing.

This is not the original thing.

No, that's not the entire thing.

With all, I think, we prefer that he not be the man.

And he may not be.

Well, when is Elliot going to resign?

Does he realize he's got to make that decision very soon, so as to get this guy to end on his place and everything?

George, he knows that, and he's moving as fast as he can, he says.

And they put a recess down until he gets a man, you know, a recess until, on his confirmation, until he gets the man in.

So he's got to do what he says to go, and he's split.

And he's checked everybody out.

Even the fellow that dropped down yesterday, who he really wanted, had agreed in principle until he put the firm proposition to him.

Now what he's doing today is sending up his charter for this man so that the committee can look at it and decide that it almost meets all of their demands, but just misses in terms of the final report.

But he couldn't have more, he couldn't have more people.

But you go on and do your thing with Brad, tell him I'm saying I'm sorry.

We'll find another man.

Now it isn't the end of the world, damn it.

No.

We've just got another one to be taken on.

Well, we forget this one.

Weren't you surprised, though, that Ben Dean did this and it proved to be fact?

I thought they were back-channel cables on the DM or the band-aid.

I didn't get it.

Okay, what?

Nixon & Haig on Watergate and Presidential Resignation

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on May 16, 1973

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